Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life: Sex Reimagined
Pastor Fletcher preaches from Song of Solomon about sex. Discussion points: The song is a glimpse into the heart of God who wants to know and be known by us, Christians should be known more for how we love than for what we’re against, you are fully known and fully accepted by God because of Jesus’s atonement.
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Preacher: The song of songs, which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant. Your name is oil poured out. Therefore, virgins love you. Draw me after you, let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.
This is the word of the Lord.
Wow, you are you sure you're thankful for that one. All right, today's sermon on the song of Solomon. Now, if you're familiar with the Song of Salmon, you may already know that things can get, let's say spicy as we go through this book. So if you've got a little one in tow, who still thinks that the birds and the bees are about things that fly, you might want to navigate a strategic exit or maybe today is the day that they do learn about some of these biblical truths should we say? in which case, hey, your call, do whatever you wanna do.
We're here doing an overview series on the song of Solomon on the Well, we are doing an overview sermon on the song of Solomon. We're doing an overview series on the Wisdom Literature and this is the final week and it's been a fun series. Honestly, to me, it has been too fast. Like I haven't ever really spent a lot of time with the wisdom literature and every week I'm kinda like, man, I wish I had like 10 weeks just to do this one book. So it's one of those things that we might have to come back to some of these wisdom books and learn a little bit more about what God has to say to us from these books.
But overview, it's been fun. It's been great. I'm, I'm looking forward to our next series also, which is going to be on the book of Daniel and diving into the deep prophecy that we have there. You know, I got a whole year where I got to go through John, which was relatively easy for me as someone explained in God's word. And now I'm doing wisdom literature and Daniel, which is just like high prophecy at times and it's harder. So pray for me as we're going through Daniel, that's, that's gonna be a fun series for us too.
So let's just dive right on in to the Song of Solomon and figure out what's going on here. The first verse from Song of Solomon says, the song of songs, which is Solomon's. So we just learned and this is really the only book of the Bible that I can think of that does this. But depending on which version of the Bible you pick up, it's, this book is going to be titled differently. Some versions call it the song of Solomon. Some version call it versions call it the song of songs. And that's because the, the proper name is the song of songs.
But the song of Solomon is a little bit more, it, it seems a little bit more descriptive about what's happening because it is of Solomon. It belongs to Solomon. Song of songs means the greatest song. It's kind of the Hebrew way of emphasizing something. So we see this over and over time over and over again throughout the scripture. He is the Lord of Lords and the king of Yeah, we have the Holy of Holies, right? So we see when we have something that's really emphasis. That's the superb, that's the best. That's the greatest of all time that we just repeat the word and that's how Hebrew works a lot of times. So here we have the song of songs which means the greatest song that we can find.
And since this is the greatest song that we have in the scripture, and it also has some pretty steamy lyrics in it, I thought we might play a game this morning called, is it a song of Solomon verse or a Taylor Swift lyric? All right, I'll let you vote. I don't want to look at anything else now that I saw you. What do you say? Everybody says Swift. Solomon. It's Taylor Swift. It's Taylor Swift. Yeah. How about this one? Your lips drip sweetness like a honey comb. All right. Solomon Swift. It's song, a song, a good job, guys. I didn't get you on that one. It's chapter four verse 11. How about this one? You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes. We got Swift. We got so Solomon. That one is the song song of songs. Chapter four, verse nine, your touch brought forth an incandescent glow Swift. Solomon. That one is Taylor Swift. I once believed love would be burning red, but it's Golden Swift. Solomon. That one also Swift. Your two breasts are like two fawns like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. That one is not Taylor Swift.
All right. That was fun. Maybe a little revealing. At times it's interesting how love and romance have captivated the hearts of humans for millennia. Is it not? We're writing about songs that are were the same things we were writing about back then. Ancient poetry, modern music. Now I know talking about love and intimacy is especially when it comes to sex can feel uncomfortable. And one of the reasons why is because our society over sexualize everything, everything is over sexualized in our society.
At the same time, the church has often been silent on this topic which has love left us with confusion shame and even misunderstandings about what God has intended for sex. So as we take a deeper look at what the song of Solomon teaches us, not just about human love and the good gift from God that we call sex, but also we're going to see the about, we're going to learn about the kind of intimacy that we can have with God. There are a few books in the Bible that have puzzled scholars as much as the song has has confused them, puzzled them. And I'm going to be referring to the song because it's like the song of songs. Sometimes I'll call it just the song. So you know what I'm talking about.
There's a few books of puzzled scholars as much as the song. There's a broader range of interpretation for the song of Solomon or the song of songs than there is for any other book of the Bible. For example, Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century, he interpreted song of Solomon chapter one verse 13 which says this my beloved is to me, a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. This is how he interpreted it. Jesus is that sachet of myrrh with one breast representing the Old Testament and the other, the new. That's unhinged. That's crazy. There's nothing in the text to suggest that one breast might be referring to the old testament. I don't know what that means about the breast that Gregory of Nysa was exposed to, but there's nothing to suggest this in the scripture. It breaks every single rule of biblical interpretation that we know of.
We cannot interpret the song of songs as a manual for sex. It was never intended to be a manual for sex. I've heard sermon series preached on the song of Solomon song of songs as if it were a manual for sex where the pastor got up front described in detail, very crude sexual acts at times and then would give kind of his interpretation of what's in bounds and out of bounds for Christianity. And as you might guess, the church grew because people like talking about these things, but that is not what the book is intending to do for us. The book is not intended to be used as a manual for sex.
The song of songs at its most basic level is semi erotic, love poetry, semi erotic love poetry. It does get into some of the sexual lines. In fact, every single line is kind of packed with double entendre. I mean, every single line it is made to make you blush. That is the way that this thing is written. It would be Michael Scott's favorite book of the Bible. It is just double entendre. That's what she said, joke after. Except for you don't even have to joke. It's just literally what she said as you read the thing.
Some scholars believe that this is all that there is to the song and that's a, a very commonly held view of the songs today. In fact, that's what I learned in seminary about the song of songs that it wa that it is simply semi erotic love poetry. And that's all that it is and that it's God's semi erotic love poetry, I suppose. But I just had this question of like, OK, well, why is it in the Bible if that's all it is, is like love poetry. And I'm gonna keep saying semi erotic because it makes you all uncomfortable love poetry. Why is it in the Bible? Personally, I think that the topic of sex has made these scholars uncomfortable and they haven't really considered what all the previous scholars up until the 1900s had to say about the song.
Up until about the 1900s, it was universally accepted among all scholars that there was a deeper spiritual meaning to the song. It's more of a modern fear of sexuality that drives some of these interpretations to say that it is simply a a book of semi erotic love poetry on the surface we have on the song, this, this love poetry and then under the surface, both Hebrew and Christian scholars alike agree that there's stuff going on that there are deeper layers of meaning that we have. And you see this in a lot of different scripture that you have to find the layers of interpretation.
So on the surface, we have love, love poetry under the surface from a Hebrew perspective. The song is about the pursuit of wisdom. And so when you read the song, one thing that you might see is that many of the things that happened in the song remind us of things that we read about in Proverbs. And since they're both related to King Solomon, that would make sense. And so what many Jewish interpreters have described the song to mean is that it's Lady Wisdom who were introduced in the first nine chapters of Proverbs seeking out her lover that is lady wisdom, seeking out. So it's almost like Proverbs one through nine is advice from a father to a to a son and then about how to find wisdom. And this is almost like goddess or like wisdom finding God's people. And so that's how Hebrew scholars have generally approached the book.
But from a Christian perspective, we believe that we have an even deeper and more meaningful layer of interpretation that we can find here that we understand the meaning of this passage to reflect the relationship between Christ and His people. And one of the reasons for that is because in the New Testament, we see that marriage and really throughout the whole Bible marriage is a reflection of God's relationship with His people. It's meant to be a symbol of the way that God loves his people. Marriage is reflects God's love for us just as a bridegroom Longs for his bride Christ Longs to be with us.
When we read the song of Solomon, we're invited to see a reflection of Christ's passionate pursuit for us. That's what we see as Christians. When we read this, we're invited to see Christ's passionate pursuit for us. This is how Paul says that in Ephesians when he talks about marriage, this is what he says. Ephesians chapter five verse 31. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And this mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church friends. The song of Solomon is more than just beautiful words. It's a glimpse into the heart of God who desires to know us fully and to be fully known by us.
There's not much story to this book as you go through it. Eight chapters, I think about 173 verses and what you see isn't like a story. It's more like a collection of poems and it's cyclical. The same thing tends to happen over and over again. You have a lover and a beloved, you have she and he in some translations, in other translations, it is the, the beloved and the lover and the beloved would be the the female character from it and the lover would be the male character from it. And they're both expressing their desire for one another. And then you see them go out looking for one another and calling to one another and then they find one another and they speak lovingly to one another. And just when you think that they're about to hook up, it starts over and they're like, I lost him. Where did he go? And then their desires start again and they start looking for one another again. It's got the cyclical pattern to it.
And the whole book is about the search for intimacy. The search for intimacy. Intimacy is about this being fully known and not rejected. Isn't that beautiful to be fully known and not reject it. It's about knowing all the way to the core and to being loved. The same sex is just the most powerful, an intense version of intimacy that two humans can have with one another. That's why the Bible describes marriage as being as becoming one flesh. Sex is so powerful that it has the potential to create life. In fact, when you look at scientists who are creating life or artificial life or they often times what we say is that they're playing God, what else has the power to create life than something as powerful as sex.
Sex was designed by God to be between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage for life. Now, pretty much every word that I just spoke is controversial. OK, one man, one woman covenant of marriage for life. I'm not looking for the smoke. Ok. Trust me, I prefer to be liked. Ok, I'm not trying to be disliked. But that is what Christians have always believed about marriage. That is what Christians have always believed about sex. That is what the Bible clearly teaches about sex. And we believe that not because we're repressive bigots here. We know that we stand out to the culture around us, but we believe it just because we believe that the image of marriage that we have in scripture is really important. We believe that who God is is what you believe about who God is is the most important thing about you.
And if what you believe about who God is is important and he tells us that marriage is something that reflects upon who He is, then we better get this thing, right? I want it to look like if I have an image of my wife sitting on my desk, I don't want it to be a distorted image of my wife. I want it to be the most accurate image of my wife because I love her and I love looking at her and I don't want this distorted image. So because marriage is an image of of God's love for us, we want to get the image right? And we want to look at how he describes it and what it says for us, marriage is meant to reflect God's love for us.
Now today is not the day for me to go into all the details of the Christian sexual ethic. I've done that before. many times. I would point you to the sermons online that you can go and watch if you want to. We can sit down, we can talk about these things. But let me just say this. Ok. I've already said a few controversial things that no doubt, some of you disagree with me. We are in Somerville, Massachusetts after all. And no doubt, some of you disagree with me on some of these things. But let me just tell you another thing that Jesus teaches Jesus teaches us, Jesus teaches me as a Christian to love my enemies. He says, love your enemies. And if you disagree with me on these things, I do not even see you as my enemy to disagree with someone. Although our culture says it is like this to disagree with someone is not that does not make them your enemy, you simply disagree. And so if I'm called to love my enemies, and I don't even see you as my enemy. How much more am I called to love you?
So as Christians, I'm not here to just wag my finger finger and tell you how much of a sinner you are. I'm here to love you and to care for you. We should be known more for how we love than for what we're against as Christians. We should be known more for how we love than what we're against. So sex was designed by God to be, to reflect the way that He loves us, designed by God for, to be between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage for life.
And one of the reasons why this is is because we often think about sex as a covenant renewal ceremony. Now when we get married, we make a covenant to one another for richer and for, for better and for in sickness and in, to have and to until death do us part. That's a covenant. That's not just promises. That's a covenant between God and between people that you're getting married in front of and between two couples and uh two couples between two people and a couple. Every time you have sex as a married couple, you are renewing that covenant with sex. You're looking at the person that you have committed your life to and you're saying I belong to you, I'm absolutely 100% committed to you. Your joy is my joy and I desire you more than anyone else in the entire world.
It's a beautiful thing about, about sex and marriage is that you can say these things much like getting baptized once and committing your life to Christ. You make this covenant with Christ and then that covenant you, we're given another symbol to remind us of it every week where we, we cut you know, the baptism is a symbol of our relationship with God. And then we're given another symbol that we practice every week, which is communion where we're renewing that and being reminded of the love that we have for God and Christ's love for us. It's a physical reminder of Christ's love for us.
And so much in the same way when, when a married couple has sex, they're renewing their covenant with one another. Sometimes I get asked by married couples to officiate a covenant renewal ceremony. And I just say, oh, you don't want me there because they need to go get his, I'm like, go have sex. That's your covenant renewal ceremony. I don't wanna see it. I don't want to have anything to do with it. But you go, go have sex like that. That is the way that you renew this covenant and that you remind one another of your love for each other.
And so if you're dating someone and you have sex before you're married, there's grace guys, there's grace for everyone. We're all sexually broken people. Every person in here. Ok. I almost want to just be like the, like everybody raise your hand and say hi, I'm sexually broken, but I'm not gonna do that because it's weird. But we're all sexually broken people. Ok. There's grace. But if you're having sex outside of the confines of marriage, you have to know that you're practicing a covenant renewal ceremony that you're giving each other the physical reminder of that covenant without the deeper commitments that are required for it to be as pleasurable and as meaningful as you can. And so guess what if you were doing that before you're married and then you break up, it's going to be a lot harder. It's going to be a lot more difficult because you've been practicing a renewal, a covenant renewal ceremony for a covenant that you haven't ever made.
And so that's one reason as Christians, why we encourage you to, to not awaken love until it desires. As the song might say, the act of sex is a physical expression of a deeper longing to know and be known completely. Sex points us toward an intense desire and longing for intimacy. And ultimately our intimacy with God that we deeply long for the deepest kind of intimacy is not just physical or emotional, but it's spiritual, human relationships as wonderful as they are point us toward something greater. Our ultimate intimacy with God.
This is why we often feel unsatisfied even in good relationships because our souls are longing for something deeper, something eternal chasing physical satisfaction, whether that's through casual encounters or pornography or even emotional affairs always leaves us empty. Those things promise intimacy, but they can't deliver the kind of communion. Our hearts are longing for and are made for each of these separate the physical act of sex from the relational intimacy that we desire.
Christopher West puts it like this. He says your, but this is a, this is a graphic quote, but I think it's good. Your body wants an orgasm, but your soul wants something much deeper communion. What we truly crave is to be known and loved by God. Your soul wants to touch the mystery that's at the heart of the Trinity. True intimacy and love is at the very heart of who God is. When we think about the Trinity, when we think about God being triune, meaning father, son and Holy Spirit throughout eternity past, the three persons of the Godhead have been enjoying an intimate loving relationship with one another. He has always existed as love.
And the whole point of Christianity is to pull you into that relationship. And so true intimacy is that and love is at the very heart of who God is. The whole point is to pull you into it. When you place your faith in Christ, you are united with Jesus, you get to share in the glorious love that the Father has for the son, you are fully known and not rejected.
That is the message of the gospel that you are fully known better than any human can ever know you. And that when you come to Christ, you are not rejected, you are accepted based upon his merits and not your own today church. This is at the heart of Song of Songs and it's hard to do an overview. Like I wish that we could just spend more time as we look at every verse. But today Jesus is inviting you into a more intimate and more passionate and more truly satisfying relationship than any romantic human relationship can touch. The message of the song is that Jesus desires to be with you.
Now that turns everything on my head that turns everything I know upside down. And here's why because I don't think about my spirituality and my relationship with God like that. I don't think about Jesus desiring to be with me. I think about me desiring to be with Jesus, which is true. I do desire to be with Jesus. And even when I look at the scriptures, I think about all the different passages where people are pleading to be with Jesus. I think about Moses in Exodus chapter 33 when he says, God, show me your face, I'm not moving from this place until you show me your face. I want to be with you and showing me your face is a way of colloquially expressing, show me who you are your fullness. I want to know you. And so you have Moses pleading to see his face you see in the Psalms, it's repeated over and over again.
Psalm 105 verse four. Seek the Lord in his strength, seek his presence continually again. That's me seeking the Lord Psalm 27. You have said seek my face. My heart says to you your face, Lord do I seek? But what the song does for us is it reminds us that Jesus also seeks our faith that God loves us. Now. That's a powerful truth. And you know one that also often feels trite. Does it? Not if a friend says Jesus loves you. It's even in that tone, right? Jesus loves you and it feels just so trite and childish. But it is such a good reminder.
Song of Solomon chapter two verse 14. Oh my dove in the clefts of the rock and the crannies of the cliff. Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. Your voice is sweet and your face is lovely and this is what the Lord wants us to hear from him today, that he wants to see your face, that he desires to be with us. In fact, he desired to be with us so much that he sent his one and only son to pay our penalty so that we might be with Him. It is not outside of the gospel. We often times think about God as just being stodgy and not wanting to share his love. And we had to go to Him to get the love. But that is not Him.
You look at the parables. What happens when the shepherd loses the sheep? He leaves the 99 to go find the one. Are you the one? What happens when the prodigal son leaves his father and he starts his way home. Where is the father? Is he sitting inside saying no, he needs to come all the way here and kiss my feet before I'll bless him with my affection. The father is longing to be with the son. He's standing on his porch looking and when he sees his son very undignified Lee, he pulls up his garment and starts running. That is the love of the father for us. That is the love of Jesus for us.
The song of songs reminds us that Christ is seeking our face like a lover. He not only wants us to love him, he's searching for us. Now, I want you to imagine a young couple on a date. the the young man, he just wants to see his new bride's face. He just wants to spend time with her, but she's distracted. She's, she's got her phone and she's just reeling or whatever it might be. That's what I say. At least that's like, yeah, I'm 38. Ok. I'm old. You know, she's tiktoking and I don't know what she's doing. He wants her attention. He wants eye contact. Why? Because her voice is sweet to him. He finds her lovely and that's how Jesus feels about us.
That's hard to believe, right? That Christ would find me lovely or you lovely friends. Jesus is looking for you. Are you attentive to his attention to his pursuit? Or have you lost your first love? Like the Church of Ephesus? You know, we, we get this awesome letter to the Ephesians, one of the best letters in The New Testament. Every preacher wants to preach to Ephesians every three or four years because it's just got so much good stuff in it. And then you see that church pop back up in Revelation. And what does it say? You Ephesians, you've lost your first love. They had the best book of the Bible written to them. They had the best letter and what happens? They lost their first love. They're pursuing other lovers. They're doing other things.
Have you abandoned the love you had for Jesus at first? Are you looking for meaning and intimacy and purpose? Apart from him? Our hearts are wayward. Are they not? This is a weekly thing for me. OK. It's not, you can go, you know, there's big cycles and little cycles pursue. Maybe you're pursuing other lovers that, you know, cannot satisfy. They tickle the itch but they cannot truly satisfy or maybe you're just constantly distracted, numbing yourself.
I'm, I'm just gonna talk about the screens for another minute. I think that the epidemic of screen usage is destroying and there's been a lot of s science out there that is destroying our mental health. I think that's true. I think it's doing even more destruction to our spiritual health. Yesterday, I was grilling some burgers, some turkey burgers ok, for my family and, I went outside with my and fully intended on just looking at my phone while I was waiting on the grill. And instead I looked up at a bird in a tree and I prayed for 10 minutes and it was the best 10 minutes. I had the whole day just getting away from the device and looking for God.
What's the first thing you look at when you wake up in the morning for me? It's not the face of the savior who loves me. It's the memes that entertained me on my device that amuse me. Our devices, our devices are destroying our relationships and our mental health. Here's the good news with this. I think that most of the world sees this and I think that this is one of the few areas that the church can lead the way on and that we have to lead the way on. We have the spiritual resources to see what's going on to see how we're addicted to our screens and that we need to pay attention to greater realities and we can, and we will lead the way on this as a church in the next year.
We're going to be taking a, a digital fast. We're going to be stepping away from that. I want you to join me if you don't wanna do it. You're welcome here. But we're gonna be doing this. Ok. We're going to be stepping away from our devices intentionally trying to cut the screen time down. I think that the church can lead the way in this. I think that our world will be a better place as a result. Are you addicted to your screen?
One line repeated over and over, it it happens often in the song of songs is your love is better than wine. And I thought for a really long time, what that's talking about? Wine is intoxicating. Sure. I think it, I think it plays into that. Wine is good. You know, too much wine, not a great thing but a little bit of wine. It gladdens the heart of man. That's the Bible. OK. Don't argue with me. It's, it's not a bad thing. It has the potential to ruin lives. And so if that's you stay away from it, of course. But why would the scripture choose the most addictive thing and say you that it knows of at that time, wine is addictive and say your love is better than even the thing that can, that can, can be so addictive. We have to say that about our devices as well. Do we not that your love is better than what my device can give me.
Jesus desires to be with us. There's a book written on the song of Solomon, just as a devotional. It's actually really great. I highly recommend it. It's called Jesus Lover of my Soul. And he the author, Julian Hardiman, I believe. unpacks it. It's not a commentary, but it's just reflection on the song of Solomon. And he has this really great this really great prayer, this conversation that he has with God about God being after him and seeking his face. And I just want to share it with you. Oh, gosh, it's, it's 730 already. I'm late. Too late for a quiet time. I suppose the Lord will understand but the Lord responds, show me your face but I'm too busy. Just show me your face. But you've got lots of other disciples. God could, why can't you pick on one whose alarm clock went off on time? Show me your face but I haven't had time to shave. Lots of people are going to want to see my face. Lots of people are not going to want to see my face at this rate. Show me your face. But I I my face isn't worth seeing. Show me your face.
Lord even I don't like my face very much, let alone what's behind it and you have much higher standards than I do. Show me your face. For your face is lovely. Oh no, it's not. It's lopsided and blotchy and I've got revolting spots on my forehead. Show me your face for your face is lovely. You aren't going to give up. Are you Lord? Show me your face for your face is lovely. OK? I think you've got my attention now. But what can I say? Let me hear your voice. C Lord. Well, I think that's happening, isn't it? I can't imagine you're enjoying it particularly though. Let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, but I have a sore throat and seriously, all I'm doing is moaning. Your voice is sweet. Oh Lord. Ok, you win. This isn't about me, is it right? This is about you. You just want me. Well, I love you and your face is beautiful to me and your voice is love you lovelier than any other voice. Thank you.
And I don't know how many times I've had that conversation with the Lord, but it does seem as though I get about two lines into it and then I just numb myself, right? Find a way to avoid God calling out saying show me your face, show me your face as we wrap up today. We've talked about how our souls long for intimacy, how we're wired for connection that goes beyond the physical. And maybe today you feel that longing deeply. Maybe you've sought fulfillment in human relationships or fleeting pleasures, but you still feel empty. Maybe you've even doubted that you could ever be fully known and fully loved, known fully and not rejected.
Here's the good news, Jesus knows you better than anyone ever could. He knows your deepest fears, your hidden struggles, your darkest secrets. And he still says, let me see your face for your face is lovely. He's not waiting on you to get your life cleaned up. That is not the gospel. The gospel is not. I go clean up my life and then God invites me into a loving relationship with them. No, it is. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. It's about receiving from Christ, the righteousness that we could never achieve. It's about going to him and seeing that he desires to be with you.
He's pursuing you now, just as you are, he desires to know you to love you and to bring you into the intimacy of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. That's at the crux of Christianity. The question for us today is, will we turn toward him? Will we let him see our face if you've been distracted, if you've been running after lesser loves? Today is the day you can come home. His love is better than wine. His love is better than anything this world can offer. So let's just take a moment of silence and in our heart, let's turn to him and say, Lord, here I am. Show me your face. OK? Would you pray with me?
Father, we are so grateful for your pursuing love. Thank you that in Jesus, we see a love that goes beyond what we could ever imagine. Help us to stop running to lesser things and instead to seek intimacy with you, heal our hearts, draw us close and help us to know your love in a way that transforms us from the inside out. In Jesus's name, Amen.
On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took a loaf of bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And he took a cup and he said this is my blood shed for you. The cup of the new covenant take this in remembrance of me. And so each week as a church family, we come together to celebrate this reflection of God's love for us. This physical reminder that his body was broken and his blood was shed on our behalf. Would you stand as we pray.
Father, as we come to your table, we pray that you would satisfy us, that we would be reminded that you are enough, that we don't have to we don't have to find our own meaning and significance but that you give us meaning and significance, that you are enough for us. We praise you and we thank you. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.